VHeadline editor & publisher Roy S. Carson writes: I simply couldn't believe my ears, yesterday, when I heard Danny Esquilin, the New York State co-chairman of the coalition for John McCain, pontificate on the subject of what I presume to be McCain's perspective on Latin America and Venezuela in particular 'live' on-air on the VHeadline Venezuela Newshour (broadcast daily by the American Voice Radio Network, 10 a.m. Pacific).

In fact I was so astounded that, despite anchor John Sanchez' admirable restraint with his guest, I couldn't stop myself from calling in to the show during the second 30 minutes to rebut the plethora of outrageous allegations that Esquilin was making.

Republican McCain's NYC spokesperson actually claimed from the heart of the USA dictatorship that the democratically elected President of Venezuela is a 'dictator'! Of course he didn't want to broach the sensitivities surrounding the US State Department and National Endowment for Democracy (NED) bank-rolling of rebel forces in the Chavez opposition who sought to overthrow the legitimate government of Venezuela in April 2002 and he barely skirmished on the imposition of the USA-puppet 'Dictator for a Day' Pedro Carmona Estanga who proceeded to dissolve the Venezuelan National Congress, the Constitution and the Judiciary in one fell swoop while boasting that he would maintain executive control (=dictatorship) for at least 10, perhaps 15 years.

Danny Esquilin retorted that he receives hundreds of emails from concerned Venezuelan each day deploring the "unacceptable state of affairs in Venezuela" which he then goes on to claim, in shades of neo-McCarthyism, is a "Communist Dictatorship"... Yep, I'm sure garrulous former PDVSA/CVG et.a.l. executive Gustavo Coronel and his little pixies are busy using up bandwidth in their quasi-religious anti-Chavez proselyting and I'm equally sure that Danny is easily sucked in to the belief that they truly represent what is REALLY happening in Venezuela.

We see it all the time ... we're among the first to admit that the extravagantly $-monied Venezuelan opposition is very efficient in its anti-government propaganda although the TRUTH is the first victim in their insane war to counter legitimate democratic progress in Venezuela. They have their sights set on the person of Chavez and they build their hatred around the fact that he may not be a maiden's immediate answer to George Clooney and like bovines in the bullring, they just can;t help but snort and stomp at anything red in front of their Washington-led little noses!

Danny Esquilin went on to complain that Venezuela is aligning itself with 'dictatorships' around the world ... ahem ... excuse me! ... hasn't Danny looked in the mirror recently and the sad reflection of USA as the world's leading terrorist state aligning itself for mutual benefit with dictators all over the place?

Then again, does Venezuela have a right to interfere in the United States' domestic and foreign policy decisions when the Bush dynasty decides to blast Baghdad off the map because Daddy Bush didn't succeed in dislodging one of the Pentagon's best customers for arms and chemical weapons first time around?

Did Venezuela have the right to interfere in the United States domestic policy when it offered immediate humanitarian aid in the wake of Hurricane Katrina which swept through the southern States of North America a few years and was refused while Bush himself ignored the tragedy and his own people in their plight?

Danny seems to believe that Venezuela is playing host to a series of international terror organizations and got himself in knots when challenged over the fact that CIA-hit man Luis Pasada Carriles and a number of others of his ilk are given safe haven in the United States against spurious claims that they might be tortured or even suffer death in Venezuela.

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Hey, forget the fact that the Bushes have barbecued enough prisoners just in Texas to feed any small African dictatorship of their choice! Danny drags up the hoary old chestnut of the laptop computers supposedly seized in a totally illegal (and US Special Forces supported) invasion of Bolivia to shoot and slaughter a leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Ignore the fact that even INTERPOL has put the so-called 'evidence' in doubt and that it is well within the CIA's covert capability to clone The Pope if it suits their dubious purposes. Ignore the fact that the United States gave aid and comfort as well as massive funding to the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and its more violent derivatives in the 'terrorist' war waged against Britain... Ignore the aid and comfort given to Mossad and the Israelis in their pursuit of autonomy in Palestine... Ignore the Bush dictatorship's support for Georgian military repression in South Ossetia...

We could go on and on...

But Danny wants to deny everyone else in the world except Republican (United States) Americans the right to pick and choose their own friends among the nations of the world.

If McCain says the Vatican is bad, well then there's nothing left to do but to condemn the autocratic leader of the Roman Catholism to Evil Axis status as an autocratic Dictator. What after all is a Papal Bull other than an edict/decree that must be obeyed at risk of even greater exclusion than simple citizenry of an earthly paradise...

Who gives McCain the right to decide who should be your friends and acquaintances? If you want to see McCain's peculiar arch-enemy Fidel Castro Ruz as something more than an octogenarian mimic of Santa Clause, why not?

What right has McCain to seek to reimpose a Baptista-clone regime of whorehouses, white slavers and gambling dens on Cuba?

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What right has McCain (or Obama for that matter) to decide ANYTHING with regard to another nation's domestic political and economic policies when the United States itself objects so vehemently to any suspicion of interference by other nations, much less the United Nations where it even claims to have veto power over democratic decisions and still thinks that by delaying its monetary contributions to the UN, it can exercise further censor on the league of nations.

Personally, I would love to engaged in further debate with Danny Esquilin in the hope that he will finally regain some sense of propriety and not allow himself to become such a clear victim of his own nation's profound and insidious propaganda machine.

Yes, there are a number of bad things about Venezuela and one can equally say the same thing about the Bush dictatorship, if not more!

But, like the United States of America, there are indeed many good things about Venezuela that Danny either doesn't know about or completely ignores as a result of the constant peppering he gets in emails from elitists in the Venezuelan opposition and/or false-flagged Chavistas looking for early-retirement opportunities in the immediate vicinity of Weston or Dade County.

Roy S. Carson is veteran foreign correspondent (45+ years in the business) currently editor & publisher of VHeadline Venezuela reporting on news & views from and about Venezuela in South America -- available for interviews -- call Houston (more...)